As a young child my first Kodak Brownie Starlite was used with 127 black and white film. Later in my early 20's, I started with Nikon SLR's (F3HP, FM, FE, etc) and Ilford Black and White film. For the next four decades, B&W was my passion. When driving, walking, or otherwise mentally taking pictures, my right brain would pre-visualize in B&W. This was especially the case for the years I worked with view cameras (4x5 and 8x10). The exceptions to this were forays into Polaroid Image Transfers with the 4x5 view camera and Polaroid SX-70 manipulations, but I never considered these as my forte or artistic venue. Those that have followed my work, via both blog and Flickr postings in recent years, have seen more color work than B&W on many occasions. I was giving this thought while working on the "Winter River" videography project and trying to make sense (for myself) of this transition. My first thought was the amount of studio wildflower work that has grown to be a spring through late fall passion, all being in color with rare exception. The second thought was how new and improved software, from Photomatix HDR Pro to the NIK Collection for Color (especially Vivenza 2 and Color Efex Pro 2) have opened new creative pathways in my right brain. I can smile when I think that Ansel Adams experimented with color in his later years, as well as Walker Evans, who in his last decade of life, became very fond of the Polaroid SX-70 and the instant square color images. Good company to keep I suppose. I am experimenting with a non-traditional way of producing HDR images which I will share in a future blog post once I am satisfied that there is consistency in the approach worth sharing..